


Selcouth

by adlerobsessed



Category: Skulduggery Pleasant - Derek Landy
Genre: China's chosen discipline is sort of messed up and it needs to be discussed lmao, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Multi, warning for Eliza as well, we all know how she is
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-29
Updated: 2020-07-29
Packaged: 2021-03-05 20:01:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,219
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25590997
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/adlerobsessed/pseuds/adlerobsessed
Summary: “So basically, you’re a high end tattoo artist?”China raises one fine brow as she watches the teenager sitting across from her. “I beg your pardon?”-Four times they watched as she carved. One time she was helped.
Relationships: Eliza Scorn/China Sorrows, Jaron Gallow/China Sorrows, Mr. Bliss & China Sorrows, Skulduggery Pleasant/China Sorrows, Valkyrie Cain & China Sorrows
Comments: 6
Kudos: 19





	Selcouth

**Author's Note:**

> While working on another fic, I started thinking about China's ability and how unsettling it is - there is very little mention of others who do it so I head canon that it was her own idea to do such a thing.

**1.**

“What are you doing?”

Bliss’s voice breaks her concentration, the charcoal leaving a streak of black on her forearm. China sighs, rubbing off the stray mark with her finger and grimacing as it left an imprint of darkness, marring her normally perfect skin. She looks up at her brother, who crosses his arms just as his brow crinkles.

Worry. Concern. Fear. It is not an emotion she is used to seeing on her brother’s face.

“I am working. Please do not interrupt me,” China cooly informs him, looking back at the drawn symbol in the book.

It had taken _weeks_ to convince her grandmother to allow her access to it. Although she’d smiled so winningly at the man in charge of the collection, her grandmother was not so easily bought over by such tricks and China had found herself too scared to resort to them.

But, it is in her grasp now, she reminds herself, tracing the faded shape with the edge of her nail, sharply veering downwards before spiralling gracefully. And her experiment can begin.

“You still haven’t answered my question. What is it you are working on?” Bliss’s voice commands respect, with it holding as much authority as a commander of armies and it offers no room for escape. China catches him looking at the tools lying on the table next to her, gleaming in the soft candlelight, with each one having been carefully sterilised.

“I have a theory,” she finally says, relenting slightly. Her brother has always been stubborn and she knows she shall not get a moment of peace until she gives up some of the mysticism surrounding her activities. “I intend to test it out.”

Her brother’s eyes linger on a scalpel for a moment longer and when they eventually meet China’s, as pale blue as her own, she sees the apprehension that he shall not voice.

“Are you sure?”

She shrugs lightly and hopes he does not hear her hammering heart. “What have I to fear?”

**2.**

“Doesn’t it hurt?” Skulduggery asks her one day, still lying boneless in bed. It is not an easy thing to scare Skulduggery Pleasant and China finds herself relishing in the satisfaction of it.

“Why do you ask? Afraid of what it might mean?” China teases, keeping her eyes firmly on the scalpel as she continues to carve into her fibula, with red, crisp lines being the only sign that she had done such a thing to herself.

It is a common question, one asked so many times that China can even picture the expression that comes onto each and every person’s face before they do so. And every time it is asked, she smiles because she knows that is not what they truly mean.

Why? Why would she do something so horrific to herself? It is unspoken, haunting their eyes, lingering in their every word, that fear of something so beautiful perhaps being so monstrous. She lays a gentle hand on their arm, softening her gaze as she assures them it is painless, silently mocking the way they all breathe slightly easier as she does so.

But not Skulduggery. He sees the viper underneath the flowers and he is here regardless. Whether it is because of guilt, lust, _sentiment_ , the thought of which makes China’s nose crinkle, he does not stay away and China does not care why.

“It is a rather.. unsettling concept,” Skulduggery says quietly, for once having lost his bravado.

“That I would hurt myself in such a way in order to gain power or that I might actually enjoy it?”

Skulduggery’s lips quirked slightly. “Oh, I have no doubt of that last part.”

** 3. **

Jaron never interrupts her when he finds her working and for that, China is grateful. Most men, and women too, clamour for her attention, trying to make themselves the loudest or the brightest. Jaron simply stands to the side, silent and patient as he waits for her to finish the task.

He has always been the best of her students, careful, respectful and always listening to her words without feeling the need to reply with his own.

“What is it like?” His voice is calm, detached with cool disinterest but China can see the glint in his eyes, the slight hitch of his breath as he glances back at the still bleeding rune on her sternum.

 _Is it worth it?_ His gaze freezes on it and he cannot seem to look away.

China takes her time, mulling over the words in her mouth before she finally breaks out into a magnificent smile. “It is glorious.”

**4.**

“So basically, you’re a high end tattoo artist?”

China raises one fine brow as she watches the teenager sitting across from her. “I beg your pardon?”

Valkyrie grins, smugness practically oozing out of her. “You know, like Finbar.” 

China actually lets her forehead rest on one hand as she sighs. “Oh, _iuvenes et hodie_.”

The girls wags her finger at her. “Using other languages doesn’t make you smarter than me. It’s not my fault I wasn’t alive a thousand years ago to speak it.”

“A thousand years ago?”

“Did I say a thousand? When did the dinosaurs exist, you’re similar in age, right?”

**+ 1.**

“That looks difficult.” The words are sweet, kind, as is the smile that accompanies it and that only makes China even less likely to trust the coiled viper of a woman lying in her bed. Eliza’s hair spreads out like fans of flame, dancing across and consuming her pillow as she twists to better face China.

“I do not require your input,” China tells her, keeping her eyes firmly on her work as she lines up the scalpel with her hip bone, even as the mattress dents behind her and suddenly there is skin against hers. True, the angle is an awkward one but she has achieved others with much more difficulty without help.

One hand grips her chin, forcing her to look into Eliza’s eyes, glittering emerald depths offering no insincere warmth like her words do. Both of them are liars and they can see through each other’s deceptions like clear water and so they do not bother to stop their bodies from touching. Their affection has always been shown through physicality and neither of them would be willing to change that.

China does not know what she fears more, the viciousness that lurks in those green depths or the way the woman’s breath hitches as China leans in slightly closer? Would it be worse to be loved or to be beaten by this woman, devoured or worshipped?

Eliza’s fingers wrap around her own. “How does it work?”

The question stuns her and China blinks several times as she struggles to reply. Not once had she ever been asked such a thing and she is once again painfully aware of just how dangerous the woman looking curiously at her is.

“You wish to learn?”

“If it makes me as you are, of course.” They are equals in so many ways, that China often forgets the woman’s youth, her lack of experience in comparison to her own.

Her smile is cruel, terrible and _beautiful,_ and if this is love, China has never felt more sorry for all of those who she ever cursed to feel such things.


End file.
